poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2020-12-18 02:17 pm

Hush

Christmas is a quiet time of year. I don't know whether the noise actually grows less or whether the effect is spiritual/psychological, but my experience is that round about now, each year, a hush descends.

As if the world were responding to the injunction in the Christmas hymn-

O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

I pause now and listen and- yes- it's very quiet. I can hear the washing machine chunnering away to itself and someone trying to sell us something through the medium of my mother's TV set- which has the sound turned down so low I can't make out any actual words- but otherwise there's nothing much...

But....

2020 has been very quiet all the way through- or at least since early Spring- so the difference is barely noticeable.
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2020-12-18 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
There are a few lines from this one that have stayed with me from my C of E days.


'Beneath the angel's song have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring; –
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!'


Maybe my becoming a Quaker and a pacifist isn't so surprising after all. :o)